V. I. Lenin

Fifth All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers’ Peasants’,
      Soldiers’ and Red Army Deputies[1]

July 4-10, 1918

Delivered:4-10 July, 1918First Published:Newspaper report published: on 6 July, 1 1918 inIzvestia VTsIKNo. 139; Published according to the text or the book:Fifth All-Russia Congress of Soviets. Verbatim Report, All-Russia C.E.C. Publishers, 1918; first five paragraphs of the reply to the debate published according to the text of the magazineBulletin of Ways of CommunicationNo. 7-8, 1918Source:Lenin’sCollected Works, 4th      
      English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972 Volume 27, pages 505-532Translated:Clemens Dutt; Edited by Robert DaglishTranscription/HTML Markup:David Walters & Robert
      CymbalaOnline Version:Lenin Internet
	ArchiveMarch, 2002

Comrades, permit me, even though the previous speaker was at
      times extremely excited,[2]to submit my report on behalf of the
      Council of People’s Commissars in the usual way, that is,
      to deal with the main questions of principle in order of merit,
      and not enter into the argument which the previous speaker would
      so much like to have, and which, of course, I have no intention
      of declining altogether. You know that since the last Congress,
      the chief factor which has determined our position, changed our
      policy and shaped our tactics and attitude towards certain other
      parties in Russia has been the Brest Treaty. You will recall how
      many reproaches were hurled at us at the last Congress, how many
      accusations were levelled at us, and how many voices were raised
      declaring that this famous respite would not help Russia, that
      in any case an international imperialist alliance had been
      concluded, and that in practice the retreat we were advocating
      would lead nowhere. This basic factor determined the whole
      position of the capitalist states, too, and we must naturally
      dwell on it. I think that the past three and a half months have
      made it absolutely indisputable that despite all reproaches and
      accusations we were right. We may say that the proletariat and
      the peasantry, who do not exploit others, do not make profits
      out of the people’s hunger, are entirely and unreservedly
      on our side, and at any rate are against those unwise people who
      would embroil them in war, who are against the Brest
      Treaty.(Commotion.)

Nine-tenths of the people are on
      our side, and the clearer the situation becomes, the more
      certain it is that now, when the West-European imperialist
      parties, the two chief imperialist groups, are locked in a
      life-and-death struggle, when with every month, every week,
      every day they are pushing each other nearer and nearer to the
      abyss whose outlines we can clearly perceive, at such a time it
      is clearer than ever to us that our tactics were right. That is
      best felt and realised by those who have been through the war,
      who have seen what war means and do not talk about it in airy
      terms. To us it is perfectly clear that as long as each of these
      groups is stronger than we are, and as long as that radical
      change which will permit the workers, and the working people of
      Russia in general, to enjoy the fruits of the revolution, to
      recover from the blow that has been dealt them and to rise to
      their full stature, so as to create a now, organised and
      disciplined army on new lines, in order that we may, not merely
      in words, but in deeds ...(loud applause on the Left. Voice
      from the Right:“Kerensky!”), as long as that
      radical change has not come, we have to wait. Therefore, the
      deeper we go down among the masses of the people, and the nearer
      we get to the workers of the mills and factories and to the
      working peasants, who do not exploit hired labour, do not defend
      the profiteering interests of the kulak, who conceals his grain
      and fears the food dictatorship, the more surely may we say that
      there too we shall meet and are meeting in fact we may say with
      absolute conviction that we have already met-with full sympathy
      and unanimous accord. Yes, it is a fact that at present the
      people do not want to fight, cannot fight, and will not fight
      these enemies-the imperialists-however much some may try, in
      their ignorance or infatuation with phrases, to drive them into
      this war, and no matter what catchwords they may use as a
      camouflage. No, comrades, anyone who now calls for war directly
      or indirectly, in open or veiled form, anyone who howls about
      the Brest Peace Treaty being a noose, fails to see that it is
      Kerensky and the landowners, capitalists and kulaks who are
      putting a noose around the necks of the workers and peasants of
      Russia...(Voice:“Mirbach!”Commotion.)Let them scream, as they do at every
      meeting; among the people their cause is hopeless!(Applause
      and commotion.)

I am not a bit surprised that, in view of the predicament these
      people are in, the only way they can answer is by shouts,
      hysterical outeries, abuse and wild behaviour(applause), when they have no other arguments
      ....(Voice:“We have arguments!”Commotion.)

Ninety-nine out of every hundred Russian soldiers know what
      incredible suffering it cost to get the mastery of this
      war. They know that in order to put war on a new socialist and
      economic basis(cries of“Mirbacb won’t let
      you!”), tremendous effort will be required, and first of
      all we had to put an end to the war of plunder. Knowing that the
      frenzied forces of imperialism are continuing to fight, and that
      in the three months which have elapsed since the last Congress
      they have moved several steps nearer to the abyss, they will not
      join in this war. After we had performed our duty to all the
      nations, realising the value of a declaration of peace and
      bringing its value home to the workers of all countries through
      our Brest delegation, headed by Comrade Trotsky, when we openly
      proposed an honest democratic peace, this proposal was
      frustrated by the frenzied bourgeoisie of all countries. Our
      position cannot be any other but to wait, and the people will
      yet see these frenzied imperialist cliques, strong though they
      still are today, tumble into the abyss which they are now
      approaching, as everybody can see ....(Applause)Everybody can see that who does not deliberately close his
      eyes. In these three and a half months, during which the
      frenzied imperialist party has been doing its best to drag out
      the war, this abyss has undoubtedly drawn nearer. We know, feel
      and realise that we are not yet ready for war; that is what the
      soldiers, the men under arms, who know what war means in
      practice, are saying. And as for the cries that we should throw
      off the Brest noose at once, they come from the Mensheviks, the
      Right SocialistRevolutionaries and the followers of Kerensky,
      the Constitutional-Democrats. You know where the followers of
      the landowners and the capitalists, where the hangers-on of the
      Right Socialist-Revolutionaries and Constitutional-Democrats
      still stand. In that camp, the speeches of the Left
      Socialist-Revolutionaries, who also incline towards war, will be
      greeted with loud applause. The Left SocialistRevolutionaries,
      as the previous speakers have said, find themselves in an
      awkward predicament: they have landed in the wrong
      box.(Applause)

We know that great revolutions arise from the very depths of the
      people, that this takes months and years, and we are not
      surprised that in the course of the revolution the Left
      Socialist-Revolutionary party has shown such incredible
      vacillations. Trotsky has told us about these vacillations here,
      and it only remains for me to add that on October 26, when we
      invited the Left Socialist-Revolutionary comrades to join the
      government, they refused, and when Krasnov was at the gates of
      Petrograd, they were not with us, with the consequent result
      that they helped not us, but Krasnov. We are not surprised at
      these vacillations. Yes, this party has been through a great
      deal. But, comrades, there is a limit to everything.

We know that revolution is a thing that is learned by experience
      and practice, that a revolution becomes a real revolution only
      when tens of millions of people rise up with, one accord, as one
      man.(Lenin’s words are drowned by applause. Cries
      of“Long live the Soviets!”) This struggle,
      which is raising us to a new life, has been begun by one hundred
      and fifteen million people: this great struggle must be examined
      with the utmost attention.(Loud applause.) In October, when the
      Soviet regime was founded, on October 26, 1917, when
      ... (commotion, shouts and applause) our party and its
      representatives on the Central Executive Committee invited the
      Left Socialist-Revolutionary party to join the government, it
      refused. When the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries refused to join
      our government they were not with us, but against
      us.(Commotion on the Left Socialist-Revolutionary
      benches.)I am very sorry to have to say things you do not
      like.(The commotion on the Right becomes louder.)But
      what’s to be done? If Krasnov, the Cossack general
      ....(The commotion and outcries prevent Lenin from
      continuing.)When, on October 26, you vacillated, not
      knowing yourselves what you wanted, and refused to join us
      ....(Commotion lasting several minutes.)The truth is
      hard to swallow! Let me remind you that those who vacillated,
      who do not know themselves what they want and refuse to join us,
      willingly listen to the fables of others. I have told you that
      the soldier who has been in the war ....(Commotion and
      applause.)When the previous speaker had the floor the vast
      majority of the delegates did not interrupt her. Well, it is
      only to be expected. If these people prefer to withdraw from the
      Congress, well, then, good riddance!(Commotion and
      excitement on the Right benches.)

And so, comrades, the whole course of events has shown that we
      were right in concluding the Brest peace. And those who tried at
      the last Congress of Soviets to crack feeble jokes about the
      respite have seen and learnt that we have secured a
      breathing-space; true, it cost us incredible effort, but during
      this breathing-space our workers and peasants have taken a
      tremendous step forward to socialist construction, while the
      Western powers, on the contrary, have taken a tremendous step
      towards that abyss for which imperialism is heading faster and
      faster with every week of this war.

And so the only way I can explain the conduct of those who
      denounce our tactics because of the difficulty of our situation
      is that they are completely bewildered. I repeat that one only
      has to recall the past three and a half months. I would remind
      those who were at the last Congress of some of the things that
      were said there, and would recommend those who were not to read
      the minutes or the newspaper reports of that Congress, which
      will convince them that events have fully corroborated our
      tactics. There can be no boundary line between the victories of
      the October Revolution and the victories of the international
      socialist revolution; outbursts are bound to begin in other
      countries. And in order to hasten them we did all we could in
      the Brest period. Those who have been through the revolutions of
      1905 and 1917, those who have pondered over them and examined
      them thoughtfully and seriously, will know that these
      revolutions in our country were engendered with incredible
      difficulty.

Two months before January 1905 or February 1917 no
      revolutionary, whatever his experience and knowledge, however
      familiar he was with the life of the people, could have foreseen
      that Russia would be shaken by such explosions. To fasten on
      individual cries and launch appeals to the masses which are
      tantamount to terminating the peace and plunging us into war is
      the policy of people who are utterly bewildered and have lost
      their heads completely. And to prove that this is so, I will
      cite the words of a person whose sincerity neither I nor anybody
      else will question-the words of Comrade Spiridonoval from the
      speech which was published inGolos Trudovovo Krestyanstva[3],and which has not been
      repudiated. In this speech of June 30, Comrade Spiridonova
      inserted three totally irrelevant lines to the effect that the
      Germans had presented us with an ultimatum to deliver to them
      2,000million rubles’ worth of textiles.

A party which drives its most sincere representatives into such
      an awful quagmire of lies and deceit, such a party is absolutely
      doomed. The workers and peasants cannot help knowing what
      tremendous effort and anguish it cost us to sign the Brest
      Treaty. Surely, it is not necessary to exaggerate the hardships
      of that peace by the kind of fables and fabrications to which
      even the sincerest members of that party resort. But we know
      that truth is with the people, and we are guided by it, while
      this party writhes in hysterics. From that standpoint, conduct
      inspired by such utter bewilderment is worse than any
      provocation. Especially if we compare all the parties of Russia
      as a whole, as a scientific attitude towards the revolution
      requires. One must never neglect to examine the relations of all
      the parties as a whole. Individual persons or groups may be
      mistaken, maybe baffled, may not be able to explain their own
      conduct; but if we take all the parties of Russia as a whole and
      examine their mutual relations, there can be no mistake. Just
      see what the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, Kerensky, Savinkov
      and the rest, are saying now, when they hear the appeals of the
      Left Socialist-Revolutionaries .... Why, they applaud like
      mad. They would be glad to embroil Russia in a war just now,
      when it would suit Milyukov’s purpose. And to talk like
      that, to talk now about the Brest peace being a noose, is to
      cast the landowner’s noose around the neck of the Russian
      peasant. When they talk here about fighting the Bolsheviks, like
      the previous speaker, who spoke about a quarrel with the
      Bolsheviks, my reply is: no, comrades, this is no quarrel, but a
      genuine and irrevocable rupture, a rupture between those who are
      hearing the whole onus of the situation by telling the people
      the truth, and not allowing themselves to be intoxicated by
      outcries, and those who are intoxicating themselves with such
      outcries and involuntarily doing the work of the enemy, the work
      of provocateurs.(Applause)

I will now conclude the first part of my report. During these
      three and a half months of frantic imperialist war, the
      imperialist states have drawn nearer to the abyss into which
      they are driving the people. This wounded beast has torn many a
      lump of flesh from our living organism. Our enemies are nearing
      this abyss so fast that even if they had more than three and a
      half months at their disposal, and even if the imperialist
      carnage were again to inflict just as heavy losses on us, it is
      they who would perish, not we; for the rapidity with which their
      power of resistance is diminishing is drawing them rapidly
      nearer to the abyss. We, on the other hand, in spite of the
      tremendous difficulties, which we do not conceal from the
      people, after these three and a half months have many a healthy
      shoot of a healthy organism to show; both in industry and
      everywhere else, small-scale constructive work is going on,
      unpretentious and unsensational though it may be. It has already
      yielded very fruitful results, and, given another three months,
      six months, a whole winter season of such work, we shall march
      forward, while the West-European imperialist beast, worn out by
      the struggle, will be unable to stand such a contest, because
      within it forces are maturing which, although they have no faith
      in themselves as yet, will lead imperialism to its doom. And
      what has already been begun there, and begun radically and
      fundamentally, is not likely to be changed in three and a half
      months. Far too little is being said about this constructive,
      small-scale, creative work, and it seems to me that we should
      talk about it more. I, for my part, cannot pass over this fact
      in silence, if only because the attacks of the previous speaker
      must be taken into accouiit. I would mention the resolution of
      the Central Executive Committee of April 29, 

      1918.[SeeSix Theses of the
      Soviet Government—Editor]At the time
      I made a speech in which I spoke of the immediate tasks of the
      Soviet 

      government,[Session of the All-Russian
      C.E.C.—Editor]and I pointed out that
      notwithstanding the incredible difficulties of our position
      prime attention at home must be given to constructive work.

And here we must cherish no illusions, and must say that to this
      work, difficult though it may be, we must devote all our
      efforts. Our experience, which I can tell you about, shows that
      in this respect we have undoubtedly made big strides. To be
      sure, if one looks only for outward results, as the bourgeoisie
      do, seizing on our individual mistakes, one can scarcely speak
      of success; but we look at it from a totally different
      angle. The bourgeoisie picks on the administration of the river
      fleet, for example, and points out how often we have set about
      reconstructing it and proclaims with malicious glee that the
      Soviet government cannot cope with the job. To which I reply
      that it is true that we have time and again reconstructed the
      administration of our river fleet, as we have the administration
      of the railways, and now are about to undertake an even bigger
      reorganisation of the Economic Council. That is the whole
      meaning of the revolution, namely, that socialism has passed
      from the sphere of a dogma, which can be discussed only by
      people who understand nothing at all, from the sphere of book
      knowledge, of a programme, to the sphere of practical work. And
      today the workers and peasants are making socialism with their
      own hands.

The times have passed, and in Russia, I am sure, have passed
      beyond recall, when we used to argue about the socialist
      programme on the basis of book knowledge. Today socialism can be
      discussed only on the basis of experience. The whole meaning of
      the revolution lies in the fact that it has for the first time
      in history discarded the old apparatus of bourgeois officialdom,
      the bourgeois system of administration, and has created
      conditions which enable the workers and peasants themselves to
      set about this job, a job of incredible difficulty, whose
      difficulties it would be absurd to conceal from ourselves; for
      the capitalists and landowners have for centuries been hounding
      and persecuting tens of millions of people even for harbouring
      the thought of administering the land. Now, in the space of a
      few weeks, a few mouths, in the midst of desperate and frightful
      disruption, when the whole body of Russia has been bruised and
      battered by the war, so that the people are like a man who has
      been thrashed within an inch of his life—at such a time,
      when the tsars, the landowners and the capitalists have left us
      with a country in a state of utter disruption, the new job, the
      new work of building must be shouldered by the new classes, by
      the workers and those peasants who do not exploit hired workers
      and do not profiteer in grain. Yes, this is an extremely
      difficult task, but an extremely rewarding one. Every month of
      such work and such experience is worth ten, if. not twenty,
      years of our history. Yes, we are not afraid to confess what an
      acquaintance with our decrees will show, namely, that we have
      constantly to alter them; we have not yet produced anything
      finished and complete, we do not yet know a socialism that can
      be embodied in clauses and paragraphs. If we are now able to
      submit a Soviet Constitution[4]to this Congress, it
      is only because Soviets have been set up and tested in all parts
      of the country, because you yourselves have created that
      Constitution and tested it in all parts of the country; only six
      months after the October Revolution, and nearly a year after the
      First All-Russia Congress of Soviets, are we able to write down
      what already exists in practice.

In the economic sphere, where we are only just beginning to
      build socialism, and where a new discipline must be built up, we
      have no such experience—we are acquiring it by dint of
      alteration and reconstruction. That is our prime task. We say
      that every new social order demands new relations between man
      and man, a new discipline. There was a time when economic life
      was impossible without feudal discipline, when there was only
      one kind of discipline the discipline of the lash; and there was
      a time of the rule of the capitalists, when the disciplinary
      force was starvation. But now, with the Soviet revolution, with
      the beginning of the socialist revolution, discipline must be
      built on entirely new principles; it must be a discipline of
      faith in the organising power of the workers and poor peasants,
      a discipline of comradeship, a discipline of the utmost mutual
      respect, a discipline of independence and initiative in the
      struggle. Anyone who resorts to the old capitalist methods,
      anyone who at a time of famine and want argues in the old,
      capitalist way—if I sell grain on my own, I shall make a
      bigger profit; if 1 set out on my own to get grain, I shall get
      it easier—anyone who argues in that way may be choosing
      the easier road, but he will never arrive at socialism.

It is simple and easy to keep within the old realm of customary
      capitalist relations; but we want to take a new road. It is one
      which demands of us and of all the people a high level of
      political consciousness and organisation; it demands more time
      and involves graver mistakes. But we say that only those who
      attempt nothing practical make no mistakes.

If, in the opinion of the meeting, the period under review
      includes experiments in which one frequently meets with changes,
      amendments, reversions to the old, that is not the chief thing,
      the chief meaning and value of this period. The old government
      apparatus of bureaucrats, for whom it was enough to order an
      increase of salary, is a thing of the past. We have now to deal
      with workers’ organisations which are taking economic
      administration into their own hands. We have to deal with the
      railway workers, who used to be worse off than others, and who
      have a legitimate right to demand an improvement of
      conditions. Tomorrow the river transport workers will submit
      their demands, and the day after, the middle peasants—I
      shall speak of them at greater length who often feel they are
      worse off than the worker, whom we treat with the utmost
      attention, and to whose interest all our decrees are
      devoted—a thing the previous speaker has absolutely failed
      to grasp. All this creates enormous difficulties, but they are
      difficulties which are due to the fact that the workers and poor
      peasants for the first time in centuries are themselves, with
      their own hands, organising the whole economic life of
      Russia. And so, we have to find means of satisfying just
      demands; we have to alter decrees and reconstruct the system of
      administration. Side by side with cases of mistakes and
      failures—cases which the bourgeois press seizes upon and
      which, of course, are numerous—we achieve successes, we
      learn by these partial mistakes and failures, we learn by
      experience how to build the edifice of socialism. And when we
      are showered with new demands from all sides, we say: that is as
      it should be, that is just what socialism means, when each wants
      to improve his condition and all want to enjoy the benefits of
      life. But the country is poor, the country is poverty-stricken,
      and it is impossible just now to satisfy all demands; that is
      why it is so difficult to build the new edifice in the midst of
      disruption. But those who believe that socialism can be built at
      a time of peace and tranquillity are profoundly mistaken: it
      will everywhere be built at a time of disruption, at a time of
      famine. That is how it must be. And when we see before us people
      with real ideas, we say: all the thousands, tens of thousands,
      hundreds of thousands of workers and working peasants have set
      about building the new, socialist edifice with their own
      hands. A profound revolution is now beginning in the
      countryside, where the kulaks are agitating and trying to
      interfere with the working peasants who do not exploit the
      labour of others or profiteer in grain, and there the task is
      different. In the towns the thing is to organise the factories,
      the metal industry; and what with the havoc of the war, to
      distribute production, to distribute raw materials and other
      materials is a very difficult task.

There the workers are learning to do this and are forming
      central organs of administration; there we are having to
      reconstruct the Supreme Economic Council; for the old laws,
      passed at the beginning of the year, are already out of date,
      the workers’ movement is marching ahead, the old
      workers’ control is already antiquated, and the trade
      unions are becoming the embryos of administrative bodies for all
      industry.(Applause)In this sphere quite a lot has
      already been done, but still we cannot boast of any brilliant
      successes. We know that in this sphere the bourgeois elements,
      the capitalists, landowners and kulaks will for a long time yet
      have the opportunity to carry on their propaganda and say that,
      as usual, a decree has been passed but is not being enforced,
      another has only just been passed, yet after three months it is
      already being altered, while profiteering is going on just the
      same as under capitalism. Yes, it is true that we do not know of
      any universal quack panacea for putting an end to profiteering
      at one stroke. The habits of the capitalist system are too
      strong; to reeducate the people who have been brought up to
      these habits for centuries is no easy matter and will take a
      long time. But we say that our fighting weapon is
      organisation. We must organise everything, take everything into
      our own hands, keep a check on the kulaks and profiteers at
      every step, declare implacable war on them and never allow them
      to breathe freely, controlling their every move.

We know from experience that alterations of decrees are
      unavoidable, for new difficulties are encountered which are a
      source of fresh changes. And if in the matter of food supply we
      have now arrived at the point of organising the poor peasants,
      and if our former comrades, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries,
      say in all sincerity—which cannot be doubted—that
      our ways have parted, our firm reply to them is: all the worse
      for you, for that means that you have turned your back on
      socialism.(Applause)

Comrades? The food question is the main question, it is the one
      to which we are devoting most attention in our policy-making. A
      host of small measures which are imperceptible to the outsider,
      but which the Council of People’s Commissars has
      adopted—such as the steps to improve the water and rail
      transport systems, the clearing up of the war commissariat
      stores, the fight against profiteering—were all directed
      towards putting food supply on a proper footing. Not only our
      country, but even the most civilised countries, which never knew
      what famine meant before the war, are now all in a state of
      utmost distress, created by the imperialists In their struggle
      for the supremacy of one group or another. In the West, tens of
      millions of people are suffering the torments of starvation. It
      is this that makes social revolution inevitable, for social
      revolution stems not from programmes but from the fact that tens
      of millions of people say: “Rather than live and starve,
      we prefer to die for the revolution.”(Applause)

A terrible disaster—famine—has befallen us, and the
      more difficult our situation, the more acute the food crisis,
      the more the capitalists intensify their struggle against Soviet
      power. You know that the Czechoslovak mutiny is a mutiny of men
      who have been bought by the British and French imperialists. We
      are constantly hearing of revolts against the Soviets in
      one. place or another. The kulak risings are spreading from
      region to region. In the Don region, there is Krasnov, whom the
      Russian workers magnanimously allowed to go free in Petrograd
      when he came and surrendered his sword, for the prejudices of
      the intellectual are still strong and the intellectuals
      protested against capital punishment— Krasnov was allowed
      to go free because of the intellectual’s prejudice against
      capital punishment. But I would like to see the people’s
      court today, the workers’ or peasants’ court, which
      would not sentence Krasnov, who is shooting workers and
      peasants, to be shot. We are told that when people are sentenced
      to he shot by Dzerzhinsky[5]commission` it is all right, but if
      a court were to declare publicly and openly that a man was a
      counter-revolutionary and deserved to he shot, that would be
      wrong. People who have sunk to such depths of hypocrisy are
      political corpses.(Applause)No, a revolutionary who
      does not want to be a hypocrite cannot renounce capital
      punishment. There has never been a revolution or a period of
      civil war without shootings.

Our food supply has been reduced to an almost catastrophic
      state. We have reached the direst period in our revolution. We
      are facing the most distressful period of all there never has
      been a more difficult period in workers’ and
      peasants’ Russia—the period that remains until the
      harvest. I have seen plenty of party differences and
      revolutionary disputes in my day, and I am not surprised to find
      that in such a time of stress an increasing number of people are
      giving way to hysterics and crying: “I will resign from
      the Soviets,” and talking of the decrees abolishing
      capital punishment. But be is a poor revolutionary who at a time
      of acute struggle is halted by the immutability of a law. In a
      period of transition laws have only a temporary validity; and
      when a law hinders the development of the revolution, it must be
      abolished or amended. Comrades, the worse the famine becomes,
      the clearer it becomes that this desperate calamity must he
      combated by equally desperate measures. Socialism, I repeat, has
      ceased to be a dogma, just as it has perhaps ceased to be a
      programme. Our Party has not yet drawn up a new programme, but
      the old one is already worthless. The proper and equitable
      distribution of bread—that is what constitutes the basis
      of socialism today.(Applause)The war has bequeathed
      to us a legacy of economic disruption; the efforts of Kerensky
      and the landowners and kulaks saying, “After us the
      deluge”, have reduced the country to such a state that
      they say, “The worse it gets, the better.” The war
      has bequeathed us such hardships that in this matter of the food
      supply we have the very essence of the whole socialist system,
      and we must take this matter into our hands and find a practical
      solution for it. And we ask ourselves what is to he done about
      bread: are we to continue along the old, capitalist lines, with
      peasants taking advantage of the situation and making thousands
      of rubles profit out of grain, at the same time calling
      themselves working peasants, and sometimes even Left
      Socialist-Revolutionaries? (Applause and commotion.) They argue
      like this: if people are starving, grain prices will rise; if
      the towns are starving, I will stuff my pockets; and if the
      starvation becomes worse, I will make thousands more. But I know
      very well that the blame for this kind of argument does not lie
      with individuals. The whole abominable heritage of landowner and
      capitalist society has taught people to argue, to think and to
      live like this; and to reform the life of tens of millions of
      people is terribly difficult; it will require long and
      persistent work, and this work we have only just begun. We would
      never think of blaming people who, tormented by hunger and
      seeing no benefit in the organisation of a socialist system of
      bread distribution, scurry to look after themselves and let
      everything else go hang. These people cannot he blamed. But we
      do say that when it is a case of representatives of parties,
      when it is a case of people belonging to a definite party, when
      it is a case of large bodies of people, we expect them to look
      at the matter, not from the standpoint of the suffering,
      tormented, hungry individual, against whom nobody would think of
      raising his hand, but from the standpoint of the building of a
      new society.

I repeat, it will never be possible to build socialism at a time
      when everything is running smoothly and tranquilly; it will
      never be possible to realise socialism without the landowners
      and capitalists putting up a furious resistance. The worse our
      situation is, the more gleefully they rub their hands and the
      more they resort to revolt; the worse our situation is and the
      more saboteurs there are in our midst, the more eagerly they
      embark on all kinds of Czechoslovak and Krasnov affairs. And we
      say that the old way is not the way to cope with this, hard
      though it may be to drag the cart forward, uphill, instead of
      allowing it to slip back downhill. We know very well that not a
      week or even a day passed without the Council of People’s
      Commissars considering the food problem, without our issuing
      thousands of recommendations, orders and decrees, and discussing
      how to combat famine. Some say there is no need for special
      prices, for fixed prices, for a grain monopoly: give people a
      free hand to trade. The rich will get richer still, and if the
      poor die of starvation, well, they always have. But a socialist
      cannot argue like that; at this moment, when the hill is steeper
      than ever and the cart has to be dragged up the steepest
      inclines, socialism has ceased to be a matter of party
      differences and has become a practical issue; it is a question
      of whether we can hold out against the kulaks, by allying
      ourselves with the peasants who do not profiteer in grain; it is
      a question of whether we can hold out now, when we have to
      fight, and work of the heaviest kind lies ahead of us. They talk
      about the Poor Peasants’ Committees. Those who have seen
      the torments of hunger for themselves will clearly realise that
      in order to break and ruthlessly crush the kulaks, the most
      drastic and ruthless measures are required. When we proceeded to
      organise unions of poor peasants, we fully realised what a
      severe and drastic measure this was; but only an alliance of the
      towns with the rural poor and with those who have stocks but do
      not profiteer, with those who want to cope vigorously with the
      difficulties and ensure that the grain surpluses go to the state
      and are distributed among the working peoplesuch an alliance is
      the sole method of waging this struggle. And the way to wage
      this struggle is not by means of programmes and speeches; this
      struggle with famine will show who is going the direct route to
      socialism, despite all trials and hardships, and who is
      succumbing to the trickery and deceit of the kulaks.

If there are people in the Left Socialist-Revolutionary party
      who, like the previous speaker—one of the sincerest, and
      therefore one who is most liable to be carried away, most
      subject to changes of opinion—say that they cannot work
      with the Bolsheviks and are quitting, we shall not regret it for
      a minute. Socialists who quit at a moment like this, when
      hundreds and thousands of people are dying of hunger while
      others have such large surpluses of grain that they had not sold
      them before last August, when the fixed prices for grain were
      doubled—against which all democrats protested—those
      who know that the people are suffering untold torments of hunger
      yet do not want to sell their grain at the price at which the
      middle peasants are selling it, are enemies of the people, they
      are out to ruin the revolution and are landing their support to
      oppression—they are friends of the capitalists! War on
      such people, relentless war on them!(General applause, in
      which a large number o/ Left Socialist-Revolutionaries take
      part.)A thousand times wrong, a thousand times mistaken is
      he who allows himself even for a moment to he carried away by
      enemy talk and to say that this is a fight against the
      peasantry—as incautious or thoughtless Left
      Socialist-Revolutionaries sometimes do. No, this is a fight
      against that insignificant minority, the village kulaks, this is
      a fight to save socialism and to distribute bread in Russia
      properly.(Voices:“What about goods?”) We
      shall fight in alliance with the overwhelming majority of the
      peasants; we shall win this fight, and then every European
      worker will see in practice what socialism means.

We shall get help in this struggle from anyone who has been
      toiling all his life and who may not know scientifically what
      socialism means, but who knows that he earned his bread at a
      bard price. He will understand us. That man will be on our
      side. As for the kulaks who—possess surpluses of grain and
      are capable of concealing that grain at a moment of extreme
      national calamity, at a moment when all the gains of the
      revolution are at stake, when the Skoropadskys of every hue and
      in every part of the country, occupied or not, are craning their
      necks and only waiting for the moment to overthrow the power of
      the workers and peasants by famine and reinstate the
      landowners—at such a moment it is our cardinal socialist
      duty to proclaim ruthless war on the kulaks. He is a poor
      socialist who at this moment of grave difficulty and severe
      trial for the starving people and for the socialist revolution
      washes his hands and repeats the lying tales of the bourgeoisie.

It is false, a thousand times false, to say this is a fight
      against the peasantry! I have seen this said hundreds of times
      in the columns of the Constitutional-Democratic news papers, and
      I am not surprised to hear them crying that the workers have
      split with the peasantry. When they hysterically cry:
      “Peasants, open your eyes, come to your senses and have
      done with the Bolsheviks!”’when I hear and read
      things like this, I am not at all surprised. There it is quite
      in place. These people are serving the master it is their
      function to serve. But I would not like to be in the skin of a
      socialist who sinks to talk like this!(Loud applause.)Comrades, we fully realise what incredible difficulties the
      solution of the food problem entails. Here the prejudices are
      most profound; here the interests are most deep-rooted kulak
      interests; here division, stagnation, the scattered character of
      village life, ignorance—all, in many cases, are united
      against us. But we say that in spite of these difficulties, we
      cannot withdraw; famine is not a thing to be trifled with; and
      if the masses of the people do not receive assistance in this
      famine, hunger is capable of driving them even into the arms of
      Skoropadsky. It is false to say that this is a fight against the
      peasantry! Anyone who says that is an out-and-out criminal;
      those who have allowed themselves to be driven by hysteria to
      such talk are victims of a terrible misfortune. No, we are not
      even fighting the middle peasant, let alone the poor
      peasant. All over Russia, the middle peasants have only the
      smallest surpluses of grain. The middle peasants for decades
      before the revolution lived worse than the workers. Before the
      revolution their life was one of unrelieved want and
      oppression. Our policy towards these middle peasants is one of
      agreement. The socialist revolution means equality for all the
      working people; it would be unfair for the urban worker to
      receive more than the middle peasant, who does not exploit the
      labour of others by hiring labour or profiteering; the peasants
      suffer from greater want and oppression than the workers, and
      fare even worse than the workers. They have no organisations or
      trade unions to work for the improvement of their
      conditions. Even with the workers’ unions we find it
      necessary to hold dozens of meetings to try and level out wages
      among the various trades, and all the same cannot get them
      levelled. Every sensible worker knows that this will require a
      long time. See how many complaints are received by the
      Commissariat for Labour! You will find that every trade is
      raising its head; they don’t want to live in the old way;
      they don’t want to live like slaves, they say. In this
      poverty-stricken, destitute country we want to heal the wounds
      it has suffered. We must somehow or other save economic life,
      which has almost completely broken down. This can only he done
      by organisation. In order to organise the peasantry, we issued
      the decree about the Poor Peasants’ Committees. Only the
      enemies of socialism can be opposed to this decree. We said that
      we considered it fair to lower the price of textiles. We are
      registering and nationalising positively
      everything.(Applause)And that will permit us to
      regulate the distribution of the products of industry.

We said: cut the prices of textiles for the poor peasants by
      half, and for the middle peasants by 25 per cent. Perhaps these
      scales are wrong. We do not claim that our solution of the
      problem is right. We do not say that. To solve the problem
      rightly, go and do it together.(Applause)Sitting in
      your armchairs in the chief administrations, fighting
      profiteering and trying to catch swindlers who are doing their
      dirty work in secret, is not going to solve the problem.

Only when the Commissariat for Food, in conjunction with the
      Commissariat for Agriculture, nationalises all goods and fixes
      prices—do we really come close up to socialism. It is only
      the working people of the towns and the rural poor, all those
      who labour, do not rob others, do not exploit the labour of
      others either by hiring or by profiteering, only they come close
      to socialism—for the man who demands a hundred rubles or
      more for grain is no less a profiteer than the man who employs
      hired labour; perhaps he is even a worse, a more arrant
      profiteer. After a desperately difficult half-year of Soviet
      rule, we have now arrived at the organisation of the poor
      peasants. It is a pity we did not arrive at it after half a
      week—that is where we are to blame! If we had been
      reproached with having brought in the decree on the organisation
      of the poor peasants and the food dictatorship six months too
      late, we should have welcomed the reproof. We say that only now
      that we have taken this path has socialism ceased to be a mere
      phrase and is becoming a practical thing. It is possible that
      the decree is unhappily conceived, that the scales are
      wrong. How were we to determine them? Only by your
      experience. How many times have we altered the
      railwaymen’s scales, even though they have their trade
      unions, whereas the poor peasants have none! Let us co-operate
      in checking whether the scales laid down in the decree on the
      poor peasants are right, whether it is right to lower prices for
      the poor peasants by half and for the middle peasants by a
      quarter, and to take everything away from the rich
      peasants—whether these scales are right or not.

If there is to be a fight, we shall wage that fight by bold
      decrees without hesitating for a moment. It will be a real fight
      for socialism—not for a dogma, not for a programme, for a
      party, for a faction, but for living socialism, for the
      distribution of bread among hundreds of thousands and millions
      of starving people in the foremost districts of Russia, for
      taking grain wherever it is to he found and distributing it
      properly. I repeat, we do not doubt for a moment that
      ninety-nine peasants out of every hundred, when they learn the
      truth, when they receive the decree, test it, try it in practice
      and tell us how to correct it—and we will correct it, we
      will alter the scales—when they tackle this job and get an
      idea of its practical difficulty, these peasants will be on our
      side and will say, we are displaying the healthy instinct of the
      working man, and that this, and only this, will decide the real
      issue, the fundamental and vital issue socialism. We shall
      establish proper prices for goods, we shall establish a monopoly
      on grain, on textiles and on all products; and then the people
      will say: “Yes, the distribution of labour, the
      distribution of bread and other products inaugurated by
      socialism is better than it has before.” And that is what
      the people are beginning to say. In spite of a host of mistakes,
      in spite of incidents which we make no attempt to conceal, but
      rather drag into the light and hold up to shame—cases when
      our detachments themselves succumb to profiteering, sink down
      into that slippery gulf into which all the capitalist habits and
      customs tend to drag people—yes, there are such cases
      everywhere, we know that people cannot be remoulded all at once,
      that you cannot inspire tens of millions of people with faith in
      socialism all at once (where are they to get this faith from?
      Not out of their own heads, surely? No, from their
      experience)—but in spite of all this, people are beginning
      to say that bread can be secured without profiteering, and that
      the only salvation from famine lies in an alliance of the urban,
      factory, industrial workers with the poor peasants, for only the
      poor peasant does not profiteer in grain. Yes, as soon as the
      middle peasant sees our decrees, reads them for himself,
      compares them with the talk and slanders of the Right
      Socialist-Revolutionaries and the champions of the kulak, he
      will say that in establishing one scale for the poor peasants
      and another for the middle peasants, and in taking grain from
      the kulaks without compensation, we are acting rightly. He may
      not say that we are acting like socialists—he may not know
      that word—but he is our sure ally, for he does not
      profiteer in grain, and he will realise and agree that to
      profiteer in grain at a moment of direst danger to the socialist
      revolution is a heinous crime against the people.

Bread cannot be distributed by decree. But when, after long and
      persistent effort in establishing and improving the alliance of
      the factory, urban workers with the rural poor, with the working
      peasants who do not hire any labourers and do not engage in
      profiteering, we get this thing properly going, no hysterical
      outcries against our Party will succeed in rupturing that
      alliance.(Applause)

When we promised the peasants socialisation of the land, we made
      a concession; for we understood that nationalisation could not
      be introduced at one stroke. We know that we may have made a
      mistake in embodying your socialisation of the land in our law
      of October 

      26.[SeeMeeting Of The Petrograd Soviet Of
      Workers’ And Soldiers’
      Deputies—Editor]It was a concession to
      the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, who refused to be in the
      government and said they would only remain if this law were
      passed. Spiridonova is a thousand times wrong in bringing
      forward unconnected facts and saying that she came to see me,
      humbled herself and implored. Comrades, many of you have been to
      see me and know that that cannot have been the case, that no
      comrade could have been treated like that. It must be a bad
      party indeed whose best spokesmen stoop to spreading
      fairy-tales.(Commotion.)I have a letter from Comrade
      Spiridonova—she has often written to me. I shall find that
      letter tomorrow and make it known. She writes: “Why do you
      refuse to grant two million for agricultural communes?”
      And this on the very day when Sereda, the People’s
      Commissar for Agriculture, whose work she does not understand,
      submitted a proposal to assign ten million for agricultural
      communes.[6](Prolonged applause).You
      heard Comrade Spiridonova say the same thing in her speech; but
      it must be a bad party indeed whose sincerest people stoop to
      spreading fairy-tales for propaganda purposes. I repeat, it must
      be a bad party indeed whose best and sincerest spokesmen go to
      the length of spreading such fairy-tales about the Soviet
      government! All the worse for them! Every peasant who comes to
      the Commissariat for Agriculture and reads that ten million have
      been assigned for agricultural communes will see and believe his
      own eyes and ears more than somebody else’s speeches, and
      will understand that these people have sunk so low as to spread
      fairy-tales, and he will turn his back on this
      party.(Applause)I want to say only one thing in
      concluding my speech. Until the new harvest, until that harvest
      is brought to the starving localities of Petrograd and Moscow, a
      hard period of the Russian revolution lies before us. A really
      close alliance between the urban workers and the rural poor, the
      rural working masses who do not profiteer in grain, is the only
      thing that can save the revolution.

Our Congress shows that in spite of everything the alliance of
      all the working people is growing, spreading and gaining
      strength not only in Russia, but all over the world. Absurdly
      little, terribly little is known abroad about our
      revolution. The military censorship there lets nothing
      through. The comrades who returned from abroad have told us
      that; yet, in spite of everything, guided by sheer instinct, the
      European workers sympathise with the Bolshevik Government. And
      ever more numerous are voices showing that sympathy for the
      socialist revolution is growing in Europe in the countries where
      the imperialist war is still in progress. The Bolshevik
      Government is receiving expressions of gratitude, sympathy and
      support from German socialists and other men and women whose
      names are known to every enlightened worker and peasant, people
      like Clara Zetkin and Franz Mehring. In Italy, Lazzari, the old
      secretary of the party, who at Zimmerwald regarded the
      Bolsheviks with mistrust, is now in prison for having expressed
      his sympathy with us.

Understanding of the revolution is growing. In France, comrades
      and workers, who at the Zimmerwald Conference treated the
      Bolsheviks with profound mistrust, the other day issued a
      manifesto in the name of the Committee of International
      Relations[7]earnestly appealing for support of
      the Bolshevik Government and opposing adventures by any party.

And so, comrades, however difficult and arduous the period that
      lies ahead of us may he, it is our duty to tell the truth and to
      open people’s eyes to this, for only the people, by their
      initiative and organisation, by advancing demand after demand
      and defending the socialist republic, can help us. And we say,
      comrades, that there is not a shadow of doubt that if we follow
      the path which we have chosen and which events have confirmed,
      if we follow this path firmly and unswervingly, if we do not
      allow ourselves to be diverted from the right path by any
      phrase-making, illusions, deceit or hysterics, we have every
      chance in the world of maintaining our position and of
      resolutely furthering the victory of socialism in Russia, and
      thus furthering the victory of the world socialist revolution!
      (Loud and prolonged applause and cheers.)

Reply To The Debate

July 5, 1918

All the objections of the opposition concerning my report begin
      with the question of the Brest Treaty. But such a formulation of
      the question could be called practical only if it led to
      practical results. None of their speeches about this have
      produced results, nor can they produce any.(Applause)

If the party of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries happened to have
      a majority, they would not be making so much fuss about this
      matter as they are making now. What should be discussed are the
      real achievements of the Soviet Republic on the road to
      socialism. We can assert—and not one speaker has denied
      this—that in this respect great success has been achieved
      since the last Congress. Nor have the representatives of the
      opposition refuted the fact that all who are in favour of
      tearing up the Brest peace are acting in the interests of
      restoring the power of the landowners and capitalists and rely
      for their strength on the support of Anglo-French
      imperialism. When I said that the Czechoslovaks in return for
      ten or fifteen million are also out to bring about this break,
      no one denied it. Can anyone deny that the Czechoslovaks, hiding
      behind the slogan of the Constituent Assembly, are aiming at
      dragging us into war?

The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries said it was impossible to
      create an army in a short time, but everything depends on how
      soon we put the fuel situation riglit, how the peasants get on,
      and what happens to the harvest.

Your appeals for the creation of guerilla detachments to fight a
      regular imperialist army are recognised as absurd by any
      soldier.

When people force us to go back to the question of the Brest
      peace, we say: “That peace will be violated if you
      overthrow Soviet power, and that will not happen!”(Applause.)Only then, on the basis of tearing up the
      Brest peace, will you be able to drag the masses of the working
      people into a war to the delight of the landowners, capitalists
      and white guards, who have been bribed with the millions of the
      Anglo-French imperialists. Sabotage of the Brest peace will in
      practice stem from forces hostile to the masses of the working
      people. None of the objections concerning the Brest peace can be
      considered practical. They are merely the hysterics of the Left
      Socialist-Revolutionaries.

When it was said here that the Bolsheviks were yielding, and
      that their reports contained nothing of practical value, I
      recalled the words uttered here by one Socialist-Revolutionary,
      a Maximalist I think he was, to the effect that the Supreme
      Economic Council is passing from the control of production to
      its administration.[8]Isn’t that statement of
      practical value? What, then, are those workers doing, who by
      their own efforts, through their trade unions, have begun to
      learn from the bosses the business of administering enterprises?
      You say that it is an easy thing to learn to administer, but
      every day we in the Supreme Economic Council have to settle
      thousands of conflicts and incidents which show that the worker
      has learnt a lot, and we must conclude that the workers are
      beginning to learn—slowly, to be sure, and with mistakes;
      but it is one thing to utter fine phrases, and another to see
      how with every passing month the worker is beginning to find his
      feet, how he is beginning to lose his timidity and to feel that
      he is the ruler. Rightly or wrongly, he is acting as the peasant
      does in an agricultural commune. Time has shown that the worker
      had to learn to administer industry, and all the rest is just
      empty talk and not worth a brass farthing. If, after six months
      of Soviet rule, we are now beginning to find that control is out
      of date, that is a big step forward.

The cry has been raised here that we are marking time, or even
      retreating. Nothing of the kind. You may persuade the kulak of
      that, but not the ordinary worker; he knows what we mean when we
      say, let us have better people than the ones you sent, make them
      learn better than you are learning.

      And so, when the cry is raised here about concessions, let us
      ask any worker or peasant what he prefers: to pay in concessions
      the debt the Germans imposed upon us, or to fight? When we
      signed the Peace Treaty of Brest, we said of the imperialists
      that until they were vanquished by an international socialist
      revolution, we should not be able to defend ourselves in any
      other way than by retreating. That is unpleasant, but it will
      remain a fact’and it is better to tell the people
      so’until we have built up an army, for which we shall need
      only a few years, not decades, provided we introduce a proper
      system of bread distribution, so that there will be stocks of
      grain for the army, gathered and stored. In what uyezd or
      gubernia have the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries done that? They
      have done nothing of the kind! And until it is done, we declare
      that all your cries are just empty talk; whereas when we take a
      step towards administration by the workers, we take a step
      forward. My words have been misquoted here. What I said was that
      it must be a bad party whose sincere members are obliged to
      stoop to such talk.

We have assigned a thousand million to our Commissariat for
      Food—isn't that a step forward? Much still remains
      to be arranged, and you can do it if you only have the
      desire. But through whom, I do not know. Not through the old
      officials, surely? Our workers and peasants on the Soviets are
      learning to do it(applause), and so the purchases of
      textiles and the appropriations are having their
      effect. Hundreds of times the Council of People’s
      Commissars has discussed through whom to purchase textiles, how
      to exercise control, and how to get them distributed as quickly
      as possible. And we know that as the weeks go by measures have
      been devised for combating profiteering and catching profiteers,
      and that with every month the workers are getting a firmer
      mastery of this job—and this success of ours nobody can
      deny. We are advancing, not marking time. On June 28, we carried
      out nationalisation[9]to the extent perhaps of several
      hundred millions, yet you keep on objecting and repeating the
      talk of the bourgeois intellectuals. Socialism is not a job that
      can be done in a few months. We are not marking time, but are
      continuing to move towards socialism, and since the Brest peace
      we have come closer to it The workers have derived experience
      from a number of mistakes, they realise the gravity and
      difficulty of the struggle, while the peasants have experience
      in the socialisation of the land, and there can he no doubt that
      the more experienced and intelligent peasants are saying:
      “In the first spring we took land for ourselves; in the
      autumn we’ll take over the whole job, the whole business
      of distributing the land.” Do not forget that we are
      selling the peasants textiles at a 50 per cent rebate, that is,
      at half-price. Who else would have given the poor peasants
      textiles at such a price? We shall proceed towards socialism by
      way of grain, textiles and implements, which will not fall into
      the hands of the profiteers, but will go first and foremost to
      the poor peasants. That is socialism.(Applause)After
      six months of socialist revolution, the people who get all their
      ideas from books understand nothing. We have arrived at a stage
      where we are taking the concrete step of distributing bread and
      exchanging textiles for bread in such a way that it is the poor
      that benefit, and not the rich profiteers. We are not a
      bourgeois republic; if we were we should not need Soviets. It is
      the poor that must benefit from the distribution of grain and
      textiles—that is something no republic in the world has
      attempted, but we are attempting it now.(Applause)We
      are doing a noble work; we have the experience; and we are doing
      everything in our power to get the poor to organise. Cases of
      extortion and hooliganism are practically disappearing; for
      every such case there are a dozen others when the poor peasants
      and the middle peasants say: we must get rid of the kulak and
      the landowner! Since the Brest peace we have made tremendous
      strides in the education of the peasants, and they are now no
      longer novices in the struggle for socialism.

[1]Fifth All-Russia Congress of Soviets opened on July 4, 1918 in
      the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. It was attended by 1,164
      delegates with the right to vote. These included 773 Bolsheviks,
      353 Left S.R.s, 17 Maximalists (a variety of Left S.R.s), 4
      anarchists, 4 Menshevik-Internationalists, 3 members of other
      parties and 10 non-party people. Among the delegates there were
      representatives of the German-occupied areas of the Ukraine,
      Latvia, and Transcaucasia, who brought greetings and described
      the situation in these areas. The Congress was greeted by the
      representative of the British Socialist Party Joseph Fineberg,
      who read out a resolution passed by his party’s conference
      declaring its support for the socialist revolution
      in. Russia. The Congress also received greetings from the
      working people of Germany and Norway, and from Russian
      prisoners-of-war interned in various countries.

The Congress approved the agenda proposed by the Presidium of
      the All-Russia C.E.C., which included the following items:
      reports of the All-Russia C.E.C. and the Council of
      People’s Commissars; the food question; organisation of
      the socialist Red Army; Constitution of the Russian Soviet
      Republic; elections to the All-Russia C.E.C. The Congress
      rejected the Left S.R. demand that reports from the provinces
      and a discussion on the Soviet Government’s decision to
      introduce capital punishment for treason should be added to the
      agenda.

After the agenda had been approved, the Congress discussed a
      question that was not on the agenda concerning incidents in the
      area bordering on the Ukraine, where Mensheviks and S.Rs were
      agitating among the military units in the area with the aim of
      causing a clash with the Germans and thus sabotaging the peace
      treaty with Germany and drawing the country into war. In their
      explanation to the Congress the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries
      demagogically accused the Communist Party of not wishing to help
      the working people of the occupied areas, refused to discuss the
      resolution moved by the Communist group and walked out of the
      meeting. The Congress unanimously resolved that “decisions
      on matters of war and peace rest solely with the All-Russia
      Congress of Soviets” and the central organs of Soviet
      power-the All-Russia C.E.C. and the Council of People’s
      Commissars, and advised the Soviet Government to deal firmly
      with all agents provocateurs.

Y. M. Sverdlov delivered the report on the work of the
      Aull-Russia C.E.C.; Lenin reported on the work of the Council of
      .People’s Commissars. After stormy debates on the two
      reports the Congress passed the Communist group’s
      resolution expressing “complete approval of the foreign
      and domestic policy of the Soviet Government”. The Left
      S.R. resolution calling for a vote of no confidence in the
      Soviet Government, denunciation of the Brest Peace Treaty, and a
      change in the home and foreign policy of Soviet power was
      rejected.

Defeated at the Congress, the Left S.R.s resorted to use of
      force, and on July 6 launched an armed counter-revolutionary
      insurrection in Moscow. The Congress adjourned until July
      9. When it met again to discuss the events of July 6-7, the
      Congress fully approved the government’s resolute measures
      to deal with the criminal venture of the Left S.R.s and stated
      that the Left S.R.s who shared the views of their ruling clique
      “can have no place in the Soviets of Workers’ and
      Peasants’ Deputies”.

In a resolution on the report by the People’s Commissar
      for Food A. D. Tsyurupa the Congress endorsed the grain
      monopoly, stressed the need for resolute suppression of kulak
      resistance and approved the setting up of the poor
      peasants’ committees.

At its final session on July 10, the Congress heard a report on
      the organisation of the Red Army and unanimously approved the
      Communist group’s resolution outlining essential measures
      for organising and consolidating the Red Army on the basis of
      compulsory military service by the working people.

The Congress completed its work with an act of the greatest
      historical significance. It passed the first Constitution of the
      R.S.F.S.R., thus legislatively consolidating the gains of the
      working people of Soviet Russia.

[2]The “previous speaker”. was M. A. Spiridonova, one
      of the Left S.R. leaders. She had delivered a supplementary
      report to the Congress on the work of the peasant section of the
      All-Russia C.E.C., which contained a number of  attacks on the
      policy of the Soviet Government and the Communist Party.

[3]Golos Trudovovo Krestyanstva(Voice of the Labouring
      Peasantry)—daily newspaper that appeared in Petrograd from
      the end of November 1917 as the organ of the Executive Committee
      of the All-Russia Soviet of Peasants’ Deputies, Second
      Convocation (until December 9 [221 it was known asIzvestiaof the All-Russia Peasant Congress). On
      January 20 (February 2), 1918, it became the organ of the
      peasant section of the All-Russia C.E.C. Up to July 10, 1918,
      the paper was controlled by the Left S.R.s. On November 6, 1918,
      Became the organ of the People’s Commissariat for
      Agriculture. It continued to appear until May 31, 1919.

[4]The reference is to the Draft Constitution of the Russian
      Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, which was submitted for
      the approval of the Fifth All-Russia Congress of Soviets.

A decisionon pre aration of a draft constitution of the
      R.S. F.S.R. had been pass11 in January 1918 by the Third
      All-Russia Congress of Soviets. But the Soviet Government was
      able to begin work on the draft only after the peaceful
      breathing-space had been gained. Lenin played a decisive part in
      drawing up the first Soviet Constitution.

The work of preparing the draft was done by the constitution
      commission set up by the All-Russia C.E.C. on April 1, 1918,
      under the chairmanship of Y. M. Sverdlov.

On Sverdlov’s suggestion at a meeting of the All-Russia
      C.E.C. on June 14 the question of the Soviet Constitution was
      included on the agenda of the Fifth All-Russia Congress of
      Soviets. The final drafting of the Constitution for submission
      to the Congress was entrusted to a commission of the Central
      Committee of the R.C.P.(B.) under the chairmanship of Lenin. On
      July 3 this commission considered two drafts of the Soviet
      Constitution-one made by the constitution commission of the
      All-Russia C.E.C. and another submitted by the People’s
      Commissariat for Justice. The commission of the Central
      Committee of the R.C.P.(B.) took as the basis for the
      constitution the draft submitted by the constitution commission
      of the All-Russia C.E.C., adding some of the proposals put
      forward by the People’s Commissariat for Justice. On
      Lenin’s suggestion the following amendments were made: a
      Declaration of Rights of the Working and Exploited People was
      included as a preamble to the Constitution; an article on
      national and racial equality in the Soviet Republic, and
      articles on the political rights of foreigners resident in the
      R.S.F.S.R. for purposes of work (Lenin’s “Rough
      Draft of Point 20 of the Second Section of the Constitution of
      the R.S.F.S.R.”, which defines their rights) and on the
      granting of the right of asylum to all foreigners subjected to
      persecution for their political and religious beliefs
      (Lenin’s amendments, see Decrees of the Soviet Government,
      Russ. ed., Vol. 2, 1959, pp. 546-49) were added. The commission
      of the C.C. of the R.C.P.(B . ) also introduced a number of
      other important amendments and corrections. The draft passed by
      the C.C. of the R.C.P.(B.) was submitted for approval by the
      Fifth All-Russia Congress of Soviets.

On the first day of the Congress Sverdlov proposed setting up a
      commission to consider the draft Constitution and report on it
      to the Congress. The commission was formed from among
      representatives of the various groups; it made a few changes of
      a stylistic nature, added several articles to the section on
      budget rights and introduced a new section on the arms and flag
      of the R.S.F.S.R. At its final session on July 10 the Congress
      heard the report of the commission on the draft Constitution,
      after which it unanimously approved the Constitution of the
      R.S.F.S.R. and entrusted the final work of editing the text to
      the new All-Russia C.E.C.

On July 19, 1918, the Constitution of the Russian Socialist Federative
      Soviet Republic was published as the Fundamental Law and came
      into force as from the date of publication.

[5]The reference is to the All-Russia Extraordinary Commission of
      the Council of People’s Commissars, whose Chairman was
      F. B. Dzerzhinsky.

The All-Russia Extraordinary Commission (Cheka) was set upon
      December 7 (20), 1917 by decision of the Council of
      People’s Commissars for the purpose of “ruthlessly
      combating counterrevolution, sabotage and
      profiteering”. As the strong right arm of the dictatorship
      of the proletariat, the Cheka played an enormous part in
      checking counter-revolutionary sabotage and in protecting the
      security of the Soviet Republic. Appraising the work of this
      commission, Lenin pointed out in his report to the Ninth
      All-Russia Congress of Soviets in December 1921: “... It
      was our effective weapon against the numerous plots and numerous
      attacks on Soviet power” (see V. 1. Lenin, Report on
      Peace, Moscow, p. 262). In its Resolution on the Cheka the Ninth
      Congress noted the commission’s heroic work in protecting
      the gains of the October Revolution and, in view of the
      consolidation of Soviet power, proposed curtailing the
      commission’s sphere of activity. This resolution reflected
      proposals made by Lenin in a draft decision of the Political
      Bureau of the C.C,. of the R.C.P.(B.) on the Cheka, which he
      wrote on December 1, 1921 (seeLenin Miscellany XXXVI,p. 369). On February 6, 1922 the All-Russia C.E.C. passed a
      decree abolishing the Cheka.

[6]In the very first months of its existence Soviet rower gave the
      collective farming enterprises considerable material and
      financial assistance. Estimates of the Current Land Policy
      Department of the People’s Commissariat for Agriculture
      show that in the second half of 1918 fifteen million rubles were
      assigned to the organisation of agricultural communes and artels
      in the form of interest free loans. Additionally the government
      assigned 10 million rubles for the same purpose in July 1918. A
      decree passed on November 2, 1918 “for the purpose of
      improving and developing agriculture and bringing about its
      speediest reorganisation on socialist principles” set up a
      fund of one thousand million rubles for financial and technical
      assistance to the labour associations and communes. The actual
      amount disbursed to communes and artels on the basis of this
      decree was considerably more than one thousand million rubles.

The collective farms enjoyed great advantages during the
      distribution of complex agricultural machinery, livestock and
      farm implements, and seed. State farms and collective farms were
      given priority by the state agricultural machine-hire points and
      repair stations that had been set up.

[7]Committee of International Relations was set up by the French
      Internationalists in January 1916. This was the first attempt to
      set up in France a revolutionary-internationalist organisation
      of socialists to counter the social-chauvinist organisations
      there. Lenin saw the value of the committee’s work in
      rallying internationalists and on his instructions I. F. Armand
      took part in the committee’s work.

Thanks to the influence of the October Revolution in Russia and
      the growing strength of the French working-class movement the
      committee became a centre for people with revolutionary
      internationalist views. In 1920 it merged with the French
      Communist Party.

The manifesto referred to by Lenin was published on June 29, 1918 inPravdaNo. 131.

[8]Lenin is referring to a speech by a representative of the
      S.R.Maximalist group Svetlov.

[9]Lenin has in mind the historic Decree of the Council of
      People’s Commissars on the Nationalisation of Large-Scale
      Industry, passed on June 28, 1918 and published on June 30 inIzvestia VtsIKNo. 134. “According to a plan that
      had been outlined long before,” Lenin wrote of this
      decree, “after extensive preparatory work a decree, whose
      appearance was impatiently awaited by the masses of the people
      of Russia was finally published on June 28” (Lenin
      Miscellany XXXV, p. 27). The decree made all large industrial
      enterprises public property. In spite of enormous difficulties
      the work of nationalisation was carried out in a short period
      thanks to the organising work of the Communist Party and the
      energetic participation of the workers. By August 31, 1918 there
      were over 3,000 nationalised enterprises in the country.

Under the same decree, all private railways and also the public
      utilities (water supply, gasworks, urban transport, etc.) were
      made public property and put under the control of the local
      Soviets.